


for once, then, something

by Anonymous



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, That's it, That's literally all this is, The Author Regrets Nothing, just wall-to-wall sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 08:54:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17825693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: And not for the first time in the Pegasus Galaxy, Rodney thought, a little wildly, a little resigned:well, so now this is happening too, and he leaned forward that last centimeter and caught Sheppard's mouth with his own.





	for once, then, something

It wasn’t, Rodney felt pretty sure, Halling’s latest batch of ruus wine, or even Radek’s blindness-inducing hooch; it wasn’t even today’s near-death escapade, one that had ended, as too many innocent recons did, with them coming in hot, Ronon half-dragging him and Sheppard backward through the gate by their vests, Teyla falling last through the wormhole, skidding across the gateroom floor, propelled by short bursts from her P-90—although whatever those, those  _things_ had been, surely any creature in Pegasus would have the rudimentary brainstem abilities to be smart enough not to follow Teyla Emmagan with a full magazine.

He didn't think it had been any of that. He didn't know what it was. But Sheppard had offered to bandage the long scratches running from wrist to elbow, and Carson was even more sheets to the wind than they were (he had turned into such a lightweight as a clone). Somehow, anyway, they'd ended up crammed together in Rodney's bathroom, too close not to be touching pretty much everywhere, John's lips pressed together in concentration as he daubed on chlorhexidine, butterflied up the worst of the cuts, put gauze on both knees and plasters on the rest.

When he looked up into Rodney's face to say, “There you go, buddy, that oughta do it,” the sentence, which had started out as jocular and fraternal, had somehow, by the words “do it,” become roughened and softened and something else entirely, something that made Rodney close his eyes. He found himself brushing back Sheppard's hair from his forehead, leaning in and muttering, nonsensically, "Yes, ought to do it," until he could feel Sheppard's panicked breath, cool and fast against his upper lip; and not for the first time or the last, in the Pegasus Galaxy, Rodney thought, a little wildly, a little resigned, _well, so now this is happening too_ , and he leaned forward that last centimeter and caught Sheppard's mouth with his own.

There was a familiar horrible panicked moment, the same one Rodney always had, of pure terror, of unadulterated _oh shit I've killed us all_ , and then John made a sharp wordless sound, exhaling hard, and Rodney was pressed up against the bathroom wall, with John’s body against his from chest all the way down to thighs. Rodney felt a dizzying wash of—he didn't know, maybe lust, maybe relief, or maybe he should have skipped that third shot and had water instead. But he hitched his hips up against Sheppard's and they both froze in place, just for an instant, a shocked fermata before the beat kicked in again and John kissed him back, hard, all but humping his left thigh, and he held Rodney's face in both hands, apparently trying to find out how far he could get his tongue down Rodney's throat. Rodney concentrated on touching every part of Sheppard he could reach—his cheekbones, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, his stubble-roughened neck, the hollow of his throat, the thin strip of now slightly sweaty skin between the back of his t-shirt and the top of his BDUs. Rodney had spent whole years of his life vacantly staring at that strip of skin and now, fuck everything, he was going to find out why.  
  
He pulled his mouth away, bent over and bit gently into Sheppard's side, experimentally. John flinched and almost caught Rodney in the head with an elbow. "I just, I didn’t—I mean we always," Rodney started to say, and John cupped his face in his hands again, and kissed him stupid.

"Rodney. Me too. All the time. It was—" and then neither of them could talk, something spangled bright white and sparkling behind Rodney’s closed eyelids, leaving him dizzy.

The ridiculousness of it, the waste—and now to have this—Rodney set the thought aside to focus on the astringent taste of John's stupid aftershave, the clean male scent underneath that, the blood-heat of his pulse under Rodney's tongue. He went back to the spot under John's ear where the blood was close to the surface, and nuzzled, and sucked, and just generally hung out there for a while, until John tensed and shivered and thrust against him again, and then again.

Nothing in a long time, as long as Rodney could remember, had felt the way Sheppard's hips did pressed tight against his, both of them twitching; it made his eyes roll back in his head, it defied logic. John was just _John,_ a sarcastic asshole who made fun of him so consistently that—that probably everyone but them knew they were in love, Rodney realized, and the stun of this realization would have dropped him to the floor if John's entire body hadn't been already holding him up. "Not here," he said, abruptly aware that they were in his _bathroom_ , and John made a sound that might have been assent, but better yet, he kicked whatever that was out of the way with his boot heel (dirty towels? a laptop? Rodney wasn't sure) and started hauling them both determinedly toward the bedroom. He manhandled Rodney through the bathroom door, dipping his head down to bite at his nipples through the silky blue uniform shirt that Rodney couldn't remember why he was still wearing, but they couldn't stop kissing long enough to strip.

There was a brief scuffle, an ineffectual wrestling match which mostly consisted of Rodney trying to be pushy and John unsentimentally just pushing back and easily getting the upper hand, because he had two inches on Rodney and a bunch of fucking close-quarters training. Rodney's eyes narrowed in mid-kiss; fine. He would, he was going to, any second now, he would make his move—he yanked his head away to catch his breath to speak.

"But why is this, why now," he tried, but John kissed him quiet again, and really there wasn't any time—they couldn't seem to slow it down, it was like being outside in a driving rain, it had its own kinetic energy and Rodney figured out pretty quickly that they had to go with the current of that, rather than fight it; it was something far bigger than they were.

They would have made it to the bed, probably; but Rodney's dresser was on the way there, and he wound up plastering John against it and knocking most of what was on it onto the floor as he scrabbled around trying to grab onto it, the better to rock his hips up, as tightly as he could, against Sheppard's, which made John hide his face against Rodney's shoulder and bite down, moaning gratifyingly, until Rodney completely forgot what they were doing again, and Sheppard had to get them the rest of the way to the bed.

You could always count on Sheppard for that, though. Whatever idiotic situation Pegasus (or, sometimes, Rodney) had gotten them into, McKay had come to trust Sheppard to get them all home, in the end. "Home," he whispered, irrelevantly, into the curve of Sheppard's ear; but it meant something, apparently, because Sheppard shuddered and then cupped Rodney through his uniform pants, palm strong and warm, and Rodney made an undignified high-pitched sound and shoved forward into the heat of Sheppard's hand, which made John laugh, a slow, throaty thing which for once Rodney found he didn't mind. John could laugh at him like that all the time, if it were always accompanied by the press of his long strong fingers, sliding up and down Rodney's crotch suggestively, cupping him, making Rodney drag in a ragged inhalation.

All the air suddenly went out of him in a huff, as John pushed him down against the bed and stood there, probably smirking, Rodney figured, though it was too dark to see, and definitely pulling off his t-shirt, because when John bent to put his mouth back on Rodney's, his dog tags dangled between them and Rodney slid his arms around the, oh god, gorgeously sleek and warm and _alive_ skin of John's shoulders and back, tracing patterns before wrapping John in his arms and pulling him down closer, not that he needed to be pulled, he was all over, mouth on Rodney's cheek, throat, behind his ear, biting a bruise into the base of his neck, a sharp sensation of teeth that had Rodney holding his breath it felt so good. Then they were kissing again, mouths clinging and yielding and everything so wetly perfect that Rodney's brain started to go offline, until he just had the remaining presence of mind to writhe and get his own shirt over his head; and then Sheppard's mouth was on his chest and it was, impossibly, _better_.

Sheppard suddenly stopped and pulled away, one hand on Rodney's chest holding him down even as Rodney unconsciously tried to follow Sheppard's face upward in the dark with his own, chasing the warmth and taste of him blindly, a heat-seeking missile. "What? What's—why are you—”

“I just, is this—do you really want, are you sure—Rodney, I need to know if—if you—”

It was too dark to see the expression on his face but Rodney reached up, traced his fingers over Sheppard's open mouth, both of them breathing hard.

“What are you, crazy,” he tried to snap, but it sounded more croaky and desperate, startling him. “Yes, of course I do, for god's sake get back _down_ here—”

“Okay, okay,” Sheppard began, sounding winded and aggrieved. “I just, you never—”

“Now he wants to talk about it? _Now?_ ” Rodney hissed, and flipped Sheppard over the way Teyla had taught them: hooking a heel behind one knee, pulling backward on his hip and pinching at John's sensitive flank with the other hand. Sheppard yelped, startled, mid-air, and Rodney caught him and lowered him down onto the mattress—a little roughly, maybe, but he had more important things to be about. “That's better,” he breathed, feeling smug, and then, Sheppard’s body arching beneath him, the feeling of John’s soft hot mouth opening beneath his, and Rodney proceeded to lose his mind for—a while, length of time unimportant, except there were John’s hands fumbling at his fly, agitated, frantic, and that was a really wonderful idea.

“Here, let me, I can—” and his fingers met John's, both of them reaching at the same time for the button of Rodney's BDUs, and suddenly it turned from whatever it was, incendiary, into something a little frightened and cautious. Their fingers tangled, then gripped, and Rodney propped up one on elbow, bringing John's hand to his mouth and kissing it, unthinkingly, each roughened knuckle, the soft skin of his wrist. John lay perfectly still as Rodney placed a last kiss in the center of his palm, then pulled John's hand up to his cheek, where it rested uncertainly, feather-light, as if he suddenly didn’t dare touch.

“Wait, it's _you_ ," Rodney realized, aloud. “You didn’t mean me—you mean you, are _you_ sure.”

He tried to stop moving, managing not to whine into Sheppard's neck, wanting those long strong capable hands in his pants and on his skin, field-stripping him as efficiently, with a quiet economy of motion, as Sheppard cleaned his guns in the evening: not showing off, just fast and brutally efficient from years of long familiarity and practice. McKay cleared his throat.

“We can—” _stop, we can stop if you want to_ ; but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “We don't have to hurry, okay, there's no—it's not like we only have forty-three minutes.”

He felt it when John started to laugh, rib cage quivering with the effort of holding it in, trying to muffle the sound by pressing his face against Rodney's shoulder, hand slipping to the nape of Rodney's neck, fingers clutching the short hair there. "What?" Rodney said, feeling stupid, still short of breath and so hard it hurt, but he didn't want to unzip if John was going to have hysterics.

“Nothing, it's just—forty-three minutes, and then what—if we're not finished, does that mean your dick is going to dematerialize inside me, or—”

_Inside_ him. Rodney closed his eyes while a wave of pure desire rippled through him, a bright hot flash starting at the bridge of his nose and rolling downward. He bit the inside of his cheek, and still felt his cock twitch, and a spill of wetness slip out. _Inside_ him, inside John— “Better get a move on, then,” he managed hoarsely, and reached down again for his zipper.

This time it was easier, without John's hand in the way—Sheppard had both hands fisted in Rodney's hair now, which was just long enough for him to grip onto as he moaned into Rodney’s mouth, tongue doing everything it could to make Rodney lose his concentration; but Rodney could focus, Atlantis had given him that, and he refused to be distracted until he had both of them liberated from BDUs and, in John's case, soft cotton boxer briefs, Rodney’s palm curled around the hot smooth length of him, forgetting his plan in favor of licking his hand and reaching back down just to feel John go rigid beneath him, the head of his cock slick and wet and slippery through the taut grip of his fingers, another pulse of wetness and Rodney gritted his teeth, feeling an answering blurt from himself, and okay, wait, change in plans—

“I just need to—oh god I hope I don't fuck this up,” he heard himself saying, and then he'd slid down between John's thighs, pinned as they were by his shoved-down pants, and sucked down as much of him as he could, rewarded by an inarticulate cry, and John's hands clenching in his hair so hard his scalp hurt. Somehow it had taken him until now to realize that _he could make John come_ and suddenly that was all he cared about, all he wanted, riding his own cock against John's taut, skinny, muscular calf as he moved, fast, his head jerking up and down, hand slick over what he couldn't get in his mouth, this hadn't been the plan at all but judging from the way John was now digging his fingers into Rodney's shoulders and gasping, he'd say he'd made the better choice. "Rodney, stop, you're—I'm, oh fuck—

“What,” said Rodney, breathlessly, pulling back to lick a long stripe up the side, then ripple his tongue just underneath the crown. It wasn't that different from his, just curved, maybe longer, about as thick, and he discovered his mouth wanted it back, so he pulled it back in again, which made John shout and clutch at his shoulders, and Rodney was ready this time, felt John hold his breath and go completely taut under his hands. He didn't stop sucking and moving, didn’t stop pulling him through it, gulping hot bitter salty fluid without even thinking about what he was doing—he wanted all of it, John saying his name over and over and over, touching one corner of his mouth, gently, almost wonderingly, still shuddering under Rodney's hands, still coming.

Rodney kept working him through it, one hand on one of John's hipbones, trying to hold him still, the other slick around the base of his cock, pulling each successive wave out of him, brain full of nothing but _fuck, fuck, yes, this_ , until John finally shivered and lay still, breathing again, sucking wind like he'd been running, one arm flung over his face, and Rodney moved up to pull it away and kiss him, John's tongue against his careful and slow, Rodney would have said _grateful_ , somehow, and with his thumb he brushed away the wetness from the corners of John’s eyes, kissed them unthinkingly. It was all pure instinct; he didn't know what he was doing, but it seemed to be all okay, better than okay, it was seamless and slick and fuck, he still wanted him, but he didn't know what to ask for until John made a low frustrated sound against the side of his neck, and gently bit down. _“Rod_ ney,” he said, in his complaining voice.

“Oh I'm sorry, was there somewhere else you needed to be? a pill you had to take, space villains to beat up, Wraith queens to joust with for my favor?” he said automatically, trying for crisp tartness and missing by about a mile, probably because his voice was nearly gone and his cock was somehow between John's thighs and he'd started involuntarily thrusting into the damp hot space, and he couldn't quite stop.

John did a complicated wriggle and wound up farther down the bed, with Rodney's hips in his hands, head tilted back in the dark. "I don't have time for your—" and then he stopped talking, because somehow, with three or four long swipes of his tongue, he'd sucked Rodney down like a beer bottle for a party trick. Rodney could barely hold himself up on his elbows, hands clutching the sheets, balled up into fists as the hot wet tunnel of John's throat actually fluttered around him, and he needed to think about hockey stats or bad superstring theory, fast—but John was making choked urgent sounds around him, almost whining, and Rodney was focused on trying not to pin John to the bed, _he needs to breathe, you moron_ , he told himself, and with what felt like superhuman effort he jerked his hips away, out of reach, felt fingers reaching up for him and the tip of a tongue, but managed to flip himself over onto his back and most incredibly of all, _not_ touch himself, which was okay after all because within seconds Sheppard was on his hands and knees, and fairly _pounced_ on him from above.

Instead of holding Rodney down with both hands, though, he wrapped them around the backs of Rodney's thighs, up high where he could feel John's thumbs stroking the sides of his ass, encouraging him to rock up into John's mouth. Which, god help him, he did, wheezing, "Jesus Christ, you're going to kill me," all sensation now pooling at one specific point inside his pelvis. Without warning he was on the edge of it right away, about to come hard and fast, the way he usually only did with himself, when suddenly he felt John pull off and say, voice wrecked, "Trust me," and before he could say _yes_ or _of course I do,_ or even figure out what the hell that meant, John had taken him down again, inside that gorgeous warm wetness, but _stopped moving_ , and when Rodney made a whimper of protest, he actually felt John smile around him, and then reach out with his tongue, stroking one impossibly long slow lick against the underside of Rodney's cock, followed by another shuddering swallow, but no more movement. John was holding his head completely still—another languorous, almost gentle slide of his tongue, another ripple of throat—and then Rodney got it: John was going to torture him into orgasm. The astonishment of this rushed through him, a bolt of pure unalloyed pleasure, and he didn't even have time to warn him, he started coming in long slow agonizing waves, the first few shocks of it not even at the peak, but tilted over and no going back. His stomach muscles locked, pulling him halfway up off the bed to hold John's face between his hands in disbelief; he could feel through his cheeks as his tongue and throat moved, and Rodney just had time to think in astonishment, between before and after, _he loves me, he's in love with me, too_ , and then he was saying over and over, _fuck, oh god, John, fuck, your mouth, fuck, fuck_ , and feeling the apex of it crash into his chest, burning. He had to fight not to wrap his thighs around John's head, with the diamond-point of him, the burning bright neutron-dense star at his center, thrust all the way into John's mouth, driven there and held, as Sheppard sucked and swallowed, sucked and swallowed, over and over. Rodney had never come like this before, he thought he might be dying, it went on and on and was unendingly wet and hot and unerringly right.

Eventually there came a moment when his body gave a shudder, and went completely lax; he fell back against the wet sheets, stunned, but somehow not surprised to feel John's teeth against his neck, and feel him jerking himself, tip of his cock wet against Rodney's stomach, as John hissed, “Fuck, I have to—oh god what you do to me, you have no idea, you can't—fuck, _fuck_ ,” and Rodney had just enough presence of mind to lean up and capture Sheppard's mouth with his, and hold them both there in the kiss, while Sheppard’s hand went faster and faster and then suddenly tightened and slowed, and Rodney felt his own cock stir again with the warm pulses of John's come hitting his belly, and the soft high pleading sounds John made into his mouth.

“Wow,” he said after a really long time. John was kind of thrown down against him, bones and muscles and limbs tossed every which way, as if it hadn't mattered, which it hadn't, which way he fell. Rodney's arms were flung around him, circling his shoulders, and he left them there, only shifting to settle John more closely against him, and push one bony shin aside. Liquefying come trickled down into the sheets but he couldn't move, he was never moving again.

"I didn't know," John slurred against his collarbone.

"Didn't know," Rodney repeated, throat rusty.

“That it was, that we're going to be like this. This way,” John said, as if he were explaining something, but Rodney couldn't organize a sentence to tell him he hadn't actually explained anything.

They both racked out, and Rodney came to only because John was finally pulling off his pants and boxer briefs, and tucking the top sheet over the wet spot. He slid back down next to Rodney, this time on his side, and only had to say “C'mere” one time, because Rodney promptly moved over and let John pull him into his arms. He pressed his face into John's chest and let himself go under again, vaguely aware of John dropping a kiss onto the top of his head. _Going to be what way, be like what_ , he wondered; but he knew John would tell him later, and that there would be a later. He slung one arm over Sheppard's hip, tangled their legs, and let himself be drawn in and held, and he slept. For the first time in days, or maybe decades, Rodney slept.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a year ago and then completely forgot about it and just found it yesterday. The title is, inexplicably, from [the poem of the same name by Robert Frost](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44264/for-once-then-something), which might make you think there's something to this; but no, there's nothing redeeming here whatsoever.


End file.
